A Day with the Bickersons

It’s 1940 and The Radio Kids of Station KTIQ (the smart place to be!) are ready to bring you a number of fun and funny radio plays! The plays are “slightly musical” in that the kids always sing their own radio jingle and sometimes sing jingles for their “sponsors” and occasionally a short song.

FFP’s newest script is ready to go live on the catalog, featuring The Radio Kids in something they really love to do — a mystery! It’s called The Mystery of the Clump in the Night! Stay tuned for more on that, soon!

Another play called A Day with the Bickersons will be ready for our catalog very soon — right after we finish getting all of the A Shakespearean Tale! materials ready to upload.

Doing a radio play is a great challenge for any actor, but especially for young actors. It’s not the same as memorizing lines and moving around the stage as they normally do. The actors actually have to act as they read, holding their script, turning the pages, and delivering their lines into the stand-up microphone while staying in character. They are acting for a “pretend audience” in front of a real audience — so they have to think on several levels. It requires a lot of directed energy.

You’ll find that some great little actors (and maybe some big ones) have serious problems reading from and following a script “on the spot.” They will take some extra attention. Many have learned to compensate with their memories, but they still need to learn to follow each page in some fashion. Figure out who these actors are right away and don’t let them get lost or discouraged. Support them from the onset and they will usually find a way to get the job done.

Radio plays are great fun, and also excellent opportunities to create some interesting and entertaining ways to enhance cultural and historical literacy for both the actors and the audience!